Why do we insist on innovating new ways to put ourselves at risk. Wanna hijack a plane? Buy the Honey Comb. It light weight, innocuous to look at and deadly! Best of all it passes through a metal detector unnoticed.

We spend billions of dollars to fight terror, disrupt their financial and training resources on US soil and then we make this??

Well, now I need to buy one...just so I can defend myself from all the other crazy people who think they need a hair brush they can stab someone to death with on a plane!

It's not as if screening for sharp things was ever a workable proposition in the first place. There have always been a million ways to get around it. Ceramic or obsidian knives don't show up on metal detectors. And even with metal weapons, it can't be that hard to pack a weapon in such a way that it's hard to see in the x-ray machine. Or figure out how to make a weapon using things you can buy once you're past security. (Smashed duty-free whiskey bottle, anyone?)

You're never going to be able to keep anything that can be used as a weapon off a plane. It's just not possible. Not without strip-searching every passenger. People like to see some kind of security in action, but they wouldn't be willing to face the immense cost and inconvenience that it would take to make this kind of security measure actually work. So what we get is a bit of Security Theatre that's mainly just for making passengers feel good and for letting the airport look like they're Doing Something.

Bruce Schneier contends that there are only three things that have actually made air travel safer since 9/11, and I'm inclined to agree:1. Reinforced cockpit doors.2. Armed sky marshals on random planes.3. Passengers realizing that they have to fight back in the event of a hijacking.

as far as #3 goes, flight 93 was shot down by F-16s scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base, forget the gung-ho bullshit pr story

air travel is safer because the FAA has been dutifully inspecting airworthiness stations making sure the mechanics who service the planes know what they're doing, not because the TSA is confiscating liquids.

Interesting side-note: according to some studies done at MIT, tinfoil hats actually amplifies military frequencies. So, you know, unless you plan on wearing a massive Faraday cage on your head, you're pretty much out of luck from stoping the terrible GOVERNMENT-APPROVED MIND CONTROL RAYS. ;)

I prefer a nice metal or reinforced nylon pen for defending myself in areas where there are metal detectors.I am also fond of a newspaper billy club. Take a regular newspaper ,roll it up lengthwise and fold it in half.The knuckle produced at the fold should be as hard as oak. The Philippines style of stick fighting works really well with this.

I am rather fond of gifting weaponry myself. The police always say to obey your attacker but the experts at rape prevention say to fight back with everything you have if you want to live. Personally I don't see anything wrong with that brush/knife at all. It is this stupid compulsion to turn our personal safety over to a government we don't trust to competently deliver our mail much less our personal safety that is the real problem.